Did you know that the Hawaiians have over 200 words for rain?
Hānau Ka Ua: Hawaiian Rain Names by Collette Leimomi Akana with Kiele Gonzalez is the fullest record of Hawaiian rain names and their lore to date, drawing on oral tradition and literature, including approximately three hundred ‘ōlelo Hawai’i primary sources from the ninteeth and twentieth centuries containing chants, songs, laments, and narratives.”
In an Indigenous language developed within the Indigenous ecology of Hawai‘i, these names codify millennia of nuanced scientific observations about “when a particular rain would fall, its color, duration, intensity, the path it would take, the sound it made on the trees, the scent it carried, and the effect it had on people.” Each inhabits a specific home within the islands: in the lyrics of Hawaiian poetry and music, a place is often named and then its rain is described.
“All the Ways to Name Rain,” Orion Magazine, Spring 2023
